Let me start off by saying I love my kids, more than my own life. I absolutely love being a Dad to my two awesome girls. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for them. I wouldn’t change a single thing about them. I could go on forever about how much I love being their Dad but I’d be lying if I didn’t say the physical act of parenting my kids on a daily basis is one of the most difficult things in life to do. How on earth I have managed to raise my daughter from a tiny baby to the nursery age preschooler she is now is beyond me.

I think It would be better if I explained what I mean when I say I love being a parent but I hate parenting.

Yes, I love all the quality time I get with them, but in a single day, I must say NO, STOP IT, DON’T DO THAT or PLEASE, a hundred times or more.Trying to be consistent is one of the main things you need to be good at in order to be an effective parent,. I MUST be mentally and physically prepared to deal with their mischievous behaviour ALL DAY LONG, no matter how exhausted and overwhelmed I may be. I mean don’t get me wrong there are days when I just sit and look at them and think, “I wish time would stand still” or “I wish I had a pause button.” Then there are the days when I think to myself, “Stop being a dick” and “surely next year will be easier?”

In the last day alone, I have had to stop my kids from trying to stand up on a swinging office chair while trying to get the dogs to do the same, cleaned up juice from the floor (twice0 because she refused to move it out of the way, put up with a massive tantrum because I pressed the wrong button on her camera and I’ve had to endure hearing “DAD!” a million times in the last half an hour alone.

The truth is, parenting is hard.

When I first started feeling that parenting was “no fun,” I spoke to a couple of friends of mine who said, “I’ll tell you the truth. I love my kids, but I hate parenting.”

That statement really struck a chord with me. Yes, I love my child to the moon and back but still acknowledging that I hate setting boundaries and rules for them.

The truth is, I have two girls who are awesome and well behaved, 99% of the time. the other 1% is when they’re at their worse. When they’re at their worse, they really test every limit I have. I hate asking them to pick up their toys 112 times per day. I hate arguing with them about how many times I’ve asked them to put their coats or how many times I’ve asked Robyn not to eat the dog food. I also hate dealing with sickness, liquid poo and teething toddlers.

Yet, despite all this, It’s amazing being their Dad. I love them both in a way I can’t put into words. I live to see what funniness they will display next and to see how they learn and grow. It certainly isn’t all bad, and I don’t write this post to discourage anyone from being a parenting. I just wanted to discuss the brutal realities of raising a kid means to me. Which is something as a society we’re not very good at? We don’t always discuss the ugly truths about being a parent very often, probably because we are afraid it will make us look bad or that we’re failing as parents or that we don’t love our kids as much as people who seem to be getting it right. So many parents out there feel like they have to hide their feelings just so people won’t look down on them. Truth is, we need to stop acting as a judge and jury when our feelings may not be “normal.”

Admitting that you love being a parent, but hate parenting doesn’t mean I love my kids less – it just means I’m a normal parent.

Yes — what a job, and the hours are absolutely terrible, you lose money on it and they seem to just take all the good things you do for granted and pick on the things that displease them. But it’s also bloody marvellous. #ThatFridayLinky

Welcome to The Dadtastic Voyage!

I’m Carl Turner and I blog as The Dadtastic Voyage.

Living in Leeds, West Yorkshire with my beautiful wife Rachel and my two daughters Olivia and Robyn. I started this blog in June 2017 and it tells the tale about my life as a Dad to my two beautiful daughters.

I wanted to share the things I get right, the things I get wrong and the things I learn about what It means to be a Dad.

I mainly write about my life with a preschooler and a toddler that is about it hit the terrible twos.

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